PASCAGOULA, Mississippi - Montgomery, Ala.-based Caddell Construction provided the lowest of four bids opened by the Jackson County Board of Supervisors on Thursday for the contract to build the new Adult Detention Center.

Caddell's base bid of $26,533,800, was followed by bids of $26,624,800 by Wharton-Smith of Florida, $27,300,000 by Mac's Construction of Laurel, and $28,804,800 by GM&R Construction of Bay St. Louis.

The bids must now be evaluated and board President Mike Mangum expects the contract to be awarded at the supervisors' meeting on Dec. 16.

"they were very competitive," Mangum said of the bids. "We've very excited that the bids were within budget and after evaluation and looking at all the bids to make sure everything is OK, we hope to get this awarded to one of the bidders. We certainly want to get this project awarded and get them started."

Mangum said he believes construction can begin in February.

"We saved a little money," said Supervisor Barry Cumbest. "We were happy with the bids. We had been told that when you rebid, they come in higher, so we were good to see the low bid go down a little bit. We can get this thing up and going now."

Caddell was actually the low bidder on the jail's previous design in July with a bid of $27.11 million.

Those construction bids, however, were tossed out when supervisors fired The Goldberg Group, the jail architect, and re-started the process.

In September, the board hired Burk-Kleinpeter-Lunsford Engineers/Architects to provide architectural, engineering and other services for the construction of the new ADC.

Burk-Kleinpeter, which is based in Louisiana with an office in Ocean Springs, was able to finish the work of Goldberg and the project was re-bid in October.

Architect Chris Lunsford previously told supervisors the contract grants 440 days to build the 752-bed jail that will contain shell space for another 60 beds. The jail will be built along Kenneth Ave., adjacent to the current jail, which is old and overcrowded.

"I feel pretty good about where we are," Mangum said. "It's been a real process and now that we've got bids, once we evaluate these, we'll know if we've got good bids. I feel that they are because some of these companies bid the first go-round."

Supervisor Melton Harris was the lone vote against firing Goldberg.

"I'm glad to see we're back to this point," Harris said. "We saved some money but we also lost some time."